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Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Recently as part of my local government work I've been thinking about and discussing what Auckland's "Local Alcohol Policy" might look like. This is a new initiative, under legislation that came into effect in late 2013, which means each local council can determine a Local Alcohol Policy for their community which determines hours of operation, location, density, and additional conditions.

One of the areas of debate that came up in a workshop I was at on Friday was the usefulness, or otherwise of one way doors. The concept is that after a certain time (say 1am) you would have to stay in the venue you are in until the cut off time for alcohol purchase (say 3am). If you left a venue after the one way door closed, so to speak, you would not be able to get into another one.

Now on the one hand this will minimise the bar hopping that happens when people are getting drunker towards the end of the night, hopefully minimise street scuffles, and mean that when people are at their drunkest they are in a stable environment.

But what if the venue you are in when the one way door shuts isn't safe? Or becomes unsafe? What if you are harassed, assaulted, have your drink spiked, abused? If you leave that is the end of your night. If you stay you remain at risk. Especially if the venue isn't interested in looking out for you.

12 comments:

Moz
said...

I think that's an empirical question and there have been a number of experiments performed. I don't recall the answers (it doesn't affect me), but there's been media coverage here of those rules in Sydney and Newcastle. From a quick skim it seems that closing the venues has more effect than locking people out of them.

One aspect that doesn't seem to get enough attention is the relationship between these kind of rules and the effective creation of private anti-competitive monopolies. It would be interesting to track measures like this and bar prices.

Over the top enforcement of 'drinking of the street' prohibitions are also an indirect support for bar profits, as well as leading to petty convictions for people who are not actually causing any trouble (it happened to a friend of my brother). Save the police for those who are causing trouble.

In my view all licensed premises should have to provide free access to tap water as a basic of host responsibility- if they can't afford this then clearly they are not running an viable business selling alcohol.

@Moz: You really don't see any effectual difference between excluding somebody from a location, and confining them there?

Well, here's one difference. In the current situation, without the kind of law which you're proposing, preventing somebody from entering a business is legal (unless it's for reasons of discrimination). Restricting them from leaving is false imprisonment. So bars would have to be extremely certain they had grounds to restrict someone.

Also, you potentially have a situation where a large number of abusive and violent people are being confined in a small area. Even leaving aside the risk to other patrons - a risk that management would be compelled to expose its patrons to, under what you're proposing - this would be an extremely dangerous environment to work in.

And there are the logistics of it, too. If these people aren't allowed to leave the bar, and are too drunk to care for themselves, what are the bar's responsibilities to them? Does it need to provide a place to sleep, food, medical care?

Hugh: you seem to have missed the voluntary nature of entering the premises.

I'm aware that imprisoning someone, voluntarily or not, is problematic. I'm just not convinced that providing someone with drugs then setting them loose to wreck havoc on the general public is better than keeping them confined until the drugs wear off.

Currently the police provide the confinement at taxpayer expense while the venue pockets the proceeds of the drug sales. I suspect that if the venue had to pay for the incarceration and the drug-users had to consent to confinement we'd see a different, probably better, set of behaviours.

The most obvious would be people not getting so drunk that they weren't allowed to leave.

@Moz: I can appreciate that you want to shift the cost of managing the results of privately provided intoxication to the people who provide the drinks, but I think you're going to be punishing the people who work at these places more than the people who manage them.

And, while entering the premises is voluntary, that's irrelevant. Can you think of any other situation where voluntarily entering the premises may result in being imprisoned there without doing something illegal? (Bearing in mind that being drunk isn't illegal).

Thanks for the feedback so far - what do people think about the specific issue of being effectively stuck in a venue that has become unsafe for you, particularly for women - where your options are to stay in that environment or leave and go home, even though you are not at fault?

(OT) What the hell is that annoying interview autoplaying when I land on the homepage of this site?

Back to the topic>>Nobody should ever be forced to stay in a venue. Surely this is some kind of human rights breach??

Plus if people cannot leave the venue it creates a forced monopoly for drinks, food, toilets...potential sex partners*ugg*. What if you were the only woman present in a room full of blokes, some of which are drunk and annoyed their night is coming to an end without sex? I feel uncomfortable just thinking about it, and frankly if this were an actual law I would avoid being around to avoid the "lock in".

The ultimate defense for anyone under threat is to be able to get up and leave. That right should never be obstructed.